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In this position paper, we introduce the concept of socioscientific capital (SSC) to denote students' resources that unequivocally play a part when students learn about and make decisions regarding socioscientific issues (SSIs). Students use a variety of resources when they engage with SSI. Our conceptualization of SSC expands on current conceptualizations to refer to resources related to both the scientific and the non-scientific aspects of SSI, including internal resources (personal experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and skills), external resources (family, friends, communities, and media), and meta-level resources (dominant frames and cultures). Aiming to strengthen SSI education, we argue for taking into account how students' resources impact their SSI-related learning and decision-making. To this end, insight into students' SSC is needed and is imperative for teachers. By bringing together literature about SSI education and literature about students' resources, we provide a conceptual view on students' SSC and describe implications for SSI education.

The current study is about students' engagement with socioscientific issues (SSI). We explored the use of sources of knowledge about SSI and attitudes toward SSI among a sample of 1676 Dutch 8- to 16-year-old students. First, we developed a questionnaire that measured students' use of four sources of knowledge about SSI: Social Resources (online media use and talking with parents and friends), In-Class Resources (in-class talk and in-class offline media use), Visit Resources (visiting the zoo or a science museum with parents or school), and Offline Media Resources (engaging with issues or the news via books, magazines, newspapers, or TV). Second, we performed a latent profile analysis to explore students' patterns of use of these sources. This resulted in five profiles: Social Visitors (5.9%), Offline Media Consumers (10.6%), Media Discussers (14.3%), In-Class Users (21.0%), and Non-Users (48.3%). Third, we related these profiles to students' attitudes toward SSI, as measured with the Pupils' Attitudes toward Socioscientific Issues (PASSI) questionnaire. In line with the sources of knowledge profiles, the Non-Users felt and thought most negatively about engagement with SSI, while the Media Discussers showed the most positive attitudes. We believe that our exploration of the profiles adds to the discourse about students' socioscientific capital. Moreover, this study informs teachers about the resources that students may bring into the learning environment and their decision-making about SSI. The study concludes with practical suggestions about stimulating the use of sources of knowledge for certain groups of students and fostering positive attitudes toward engagement with SSI.

This paper presents the results of a large-scale study to validate a questionnaire that measures pupils’ attitudes towards socioscientific issues (the PASSI questionnaire). We define socioscientific issues (SSI) as those topics that are about complex societal and technological developments that may induce ethical dilemmas. In this study, the term attitudes describes a combination of attitude components that relate to pupils’ engagement with SSI. Based on a literature review within social and educational psychology and sociology, on topics such as attitude development, scientific citizenship, social or civic engagement, and SSI teaching and learning, we developed a framework that describes several underlying components of pupils’ attitudes towards SSI. These components were translated into nine scales that comprise the PASSI. Results of a validation study among 1370 pupils (age 8–15), using exploratory factor analyses on subsample 1 and subsequently confirmatory factor analyses on subsample 2, indicated an eight-factor structure that showed good convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the PASSI instrument showed adequate measurement invariance for boys and girls, pupils in primary and secondary education, and for pupils at different secondary educational tracks. The results are discussed in terms of directions for future research to further investigate the validity of the PASSI questionnaire. To conclude, the PASSI questionnaire validly measures eight attitudes towards SSI and could serve as a tool that raises awareness of pupils’ engagement with SSI. It can be used by researchers and teachers as a diagnostic instrument, to compare groups, and to study effects of SSI education.